I am on a sort of hiatus. A creative one that is. Or shall I say I have not been granted the means to make work of an official nature but can still have ideas and write poems. I don’t want to be cryptic or confessional. Since graduating University three years ago I have been busy and involved in interesting projects. I wrote tonnes. I got commissioned to make a few short videos and I got an individual project funded by ACE.
Due to the nature of my art practice and process I got closer and closer to my truth. I felt lucid and sane. I saw my life, past, present and potential future, for what it was. Art gave me back my life. Art could not make me a living. Where it gave me wings it could also make me desperate. Where it gave me roots it also made sure I was stuck. The work and the responsibility of it, as I don’t shy away from hard and personal subjects, got me exhausted.
So I decided to emigrate to a new country and start all over again. Even though I didn’t feel there was any better alternative and I genuinely wanted it, all the typical and expected stresses of such a move came up. I would say that the first six months were the worst. After that it got better. I feel I live here now. It took a while to let go and give in.
I dragged my highly strung and shell of a self out of bed on most days and vowed to keep creating, as it is a mode of survival, self-reflection and existence for me. Not surprisingly, this feeling, perhaps the artist’s identity, is also shifting. So much, as if it were food going through my alimentary canal, has been taken in, digested, assimilated and excreted. Anything I don’t need or want is gone. Just like that. It does not exist anymore.
My panic over not producing ‘impressive’ ‘achievements’ on a regular basis has subsided. My value system has changed. The importance of relationships has changed. My level of loneliness has changed. I would say it is so near to zero now that I feel like my happiness is dissolving me; the me I knew.
There are Noes everywhere I go. There are Yeses everywhere I go. They are just direction givers. I don’t mind taking the scenic route. I don’t mind being a bit late, if I must. Maybe I’ll learn something.